Tom Parker Bowles has delivered an update on his stepfather King Charles’ cancer treatment, assuring it’s progressing well. The food critic and author mentioned his mother, Camilla the Queen Consort, is staying strong amidst the tough times.
Talking about the tradition of Royal dining – and discussing Queen Camilla’s culinary skills – he offered insights into the royally frugal dining habits, explaining: “The King appals waste.”
Queen Camilla’s son, aged 49, shed light on the eco-friendly practices at the royal table: “There is no waste, everything is recycled, everything is used from the table. If anything is leftover from the dinner, that will be made into something else or appear the next day. Nothing’s allowed to be thrown out.”
A firm advocate of environmental issues, King Charles’ sustainability efforts include launching The Coronation Food Project through his charitable foundation last year, aimed at curbing food wastage and helping those facing ‘food insecurity’. Mr Parker Bowles commended, “It’s not the King just paying lip service, he practices what he preaches.”
As a stepson deeply involved in food sustainability discussions with Charles, Mr Parker Bowles admires his approach: “He really is a food hero. To talk to him about the strange varieties of plums or pears or anything else is endlessly fascinating”, reports Gloucestershire Live.
After the Palace’s announcement in February about Charles battling an unspecified cancer, Tom confirms the reassuring news from the doctors about the ongoing treatment and mentions his mother Camilla’s resilience: “She’s tough, my mother”.
In his latest culinary work “Cooking and the Crown,” Tom delves into the Royal Family’s gastronomic history, tracing it from Queen Victoria’s ascension in 1837 and King Edward VII’s era to the current times of Charles and Camilla. “They can certainly eat, that family!” he quipped during an appearance as a critic on BBC One’s MasterChef.
“In the old days, they were the very pinnacle of society and what was known about them, I suppose, was pretty controlled. So it wasn’t just what they ate [that the public were fascinated by] it was what they wore, who they saw, what they read, if the King and Queen were doing this, it meant it was something perhaps worth doing.”
He noted that meals during Queen Victoria’s reign would consist of 10 to 12 courses. “They didn’t have to eat it all but there was just a huge amount of food and they did eat a lot more than we do now.”
Parker Bowles contrasts the lavish aristocratic breakfasts of the Victorian and Edwardian eras – which he describes in his book as “full-on gastronomic assaults. Gut-busting epics that set one up for a good old fashioned day’s hunting, shooting and roistering” – with the simpler, healthier morning meals favoured by today’s monarchy. “Tastes have changed.”
During the chillier seasons, Camilla tucks into a daily bowl of porridge, made with Scottish oats, full-fat milk, a dash of salt, and honey – the latter sourced from her very own bees in Wiltshire. In summer, she opts for yoghurt instead.
Tom has revealed that her lunches tend to be on the lighter side, frequently choosing chicken broth or smoked salmon – recipes included in his book – whereas Charles is known not to have lunch, preferring dried fruit and honey at breakfast and is quite partial to mutton. Afternoon tea, however, is a grand affair for the royals, very much a significant and hearty repast.
“Everyone congregates for tea,” he explained. “And it’s not just cakes and biscuits and crumpets and sandwiches, but you might even get poached eggs. It really is a hearty mid-afternoon meal. If you are staying in Scotland, it’s quite dangerous, because you have a cooked breakfast, you have lunch, you have tea and you have dinner.”
Tom shares in his new book that at Charles and Camilla’s residence: “it’s still a 5pm ritual, where we all gather together around a round table in the drawing room at Birkhall, after an afternoon spent outside, mushroom hunting, or in my case, buying second-hand cookbooks,” revealing his impressive collection of 4,000 cookbooks. He notes the couple’s passion for mycology, saying: “They’re both very keen mycologists, and both know their mushrooms very, very well. This time of year, depending on rain, there’s ceps and chanterelles… I go with my mother and there’s a lot of fantastic mushrooming in Scotland. It’s a shared pleasure.”
The book is not just about foraging; it includes recipes Parker Bowles has discovered or received, some from Mark Flanagan, the royal household chef, adapted for the modern home cook. He describes the royal cuisine as “Food at the very top of the social strata is a mixture of very French and very high-end, Escoffier cuisine, with all sorts of truffles and cream and butter.”
Parker Bowles also touches on the tradition of royal menus being written in French, a practice that continues due to its historical significance. He recounts, “The late Queen was absolutely fluent in French and if [Flanagan] sent down the menu with one accident in the wrong place, it would be marked.
“She was amazing, the late Queen in many ways, but especially with state banquets, she never forgot if a certain somebody liked one dish – she would always add it on [to the menu] as a nod. She really remembered everything. The menus were very much written for the people at the state banquet.”
In his younger years, Camilla was the primary cook for Mr Parker Bowles and his younger sister, Laura Lopes.
“Despite being Queen, in the Seventies and Eighties she was bringing up two children, cooking for them every day. We had a very traditional English sort of upbringing. We didn’t go to restaurants really, and it was all local and seasonal, organic. Camilla’s scrambled eggs were a favourite of his childhood, which his mother used to make in “huge quantities” and the best tip she passed down to him was “to cook them very slowly”. “She was a very instinctive cook, not an empirical cook.”
Extracted from Cooking And The Crown by Tom Parker Bowles, published in hardback by Aster, priced £30. Available September 26.
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